


Tales Old and New

by SandwichesYumYum



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Complete, F/M, For tamjlee, One Shot, Post ADWD, Prompt Response
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 06:22:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2537435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandwichesYumYum/pseuds/SandwichesYumYum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth. A post-Pennytree fic for tamjlee, in which Jaime talks. A lot. Quite long, for a one-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tales Old and New

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tamjlee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamjlee/gifts).



> This is for tamjlee, with my warmest thoughts.
> 
> My thanks go to the wonderful RoseHeart, to Coraleeveritas and Nurdles, as well as to tamjlee herself.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: rape is alluded to, but NOT described.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own it not.

TALES OLD AND NEW

 

It is little more than a one-room shelter, as opposed to a farmhouse proper, but it's made of stone and the roof isn't leaking. The beams are low and Jaime moves quietly to the one he had bumped his head on earlier, when he was trying to maneuver his burden in this small place. He tugs at the softened wood and a chunk pulls away in his fingers.

_Rotten._

He stares roofwards and addresses the timbers and open space beneath the thatch in a quiet whisper. "I would take it as a personal favour if you chose not to collapse on us." He half-considers adding _'A Lannister always pays his debts'_ , but is fairly certain that any such offer would go unnoticed by the recipient.

He ducks back under the sodden beam and feels the next, which is a great deal drier and more solid, which is a comfort, he supposes. He steps over the legs of the prone figure in front of the fire in the tiny hearth and crouches low to blow on the weakly caught flames. Jaime doesn't want to have to light it again. It had taken the better part of an hour the first time, he'd guess, and he looks down between his knees, towards his feet.

_So much for my  fine boots._

Like so many tasks now, setting a fire has become much harder since he lost his sword-hand, for all that he has felt its presence on this day. His missing fingers had itched with his frustration while he clasped a long flint between the soles of his feet, sat on the floor like a strange hermit in a far-off cave. He'd placed the tinder on a scrap of leather next to the flint, but has not yet mastered the art of harnessing the sparks with any skill. How many hundreds of attempts to make some of the strands of precious, dry grasses he always keeps now, tucked away in his pack, come to life, he cannot say; but the curses he had hissed out under his breath became alarmingly inventive as he tried. In any case, when he'd finally lit the tinder, it had rolled off the scrap of leather and onto his boots. He'd managed to get the flame into the hearth, but now the fine doeskin covering his feet is adorned with two burn marks.

"The things I do for you, wench," Jaime mutters at the sleeping woman next to him. She doesn't react at all to the sound of his voice, as she hasn't ever since she tipped from her horse earlier. He'd had to slip from his own mount quick as an eel to catch her, before her foot, still caught in one of her stirrups, could twist and break her leg. She already appears to be carrying a broken arm. Possibly some ribs too; so Jaime hardly thinks she can bear any more injury right now.

He looks at what little he can see of Brienne's face, swathed in bandages he is sorely driven by curiosity to peek under, to see what damage she has there as well. He doesn't, though, choosing to take in the greyness of her exposed cheek, wet as it is with a sickly sweat. He lets his fingers brush across her forehead, but the movement is brief. The barest contact is enough to tell him that whatever ails her is burning her from the inside. Jaime suspects that it has been so since she came to him at Pennytree, but she had hidden it well until it overtook her, when they were too far away to turn back.

Instead of trying to make it back to his encampment, and with no small difficulty on his part, he'd managed to secure her over her saddle, with a quiet apology he wasn't sure she heard. Leading the horses, he'd retraced their steps, back to this little stone hut in the middle of nowhere. That, in itself, took long enough, since Jaime needed to stop often. The Maid of Tarth had been unsettled, moaning in distress with each sway of her horse, though she never woke. He found that just patting her tangled mess of hair with his stump and a few soft words were enough to aid her in her discomfort. Still, strange mutterings tumbled out of her and Jaime fancied that, once or twice, he even heard his own name fall from her fevered lips. He made no real note of it, the brief, warm twists inside him at the sound smothered by his growing concern at her state.

By the time they made it to this place, the sun had been a burning orange disc dropping towards the treeline, much the same as the night before. This day was almost done, though things could hardly be more different after a single passage of its weakly warming light. Rather than the clanging and commotion of gathered troops, Jaime heard nothing but his own grunts and Brienne's stuttering breathing while he hauled her from her horse to get her under the cover of thickly layered sedge. He might as well have been carrying a burning boulder, for all of the ease of it. She was a dead weight in his arms and he strained his right shoulder, the grip of his stump at her back only just enough to hold her against him, in a macabre sort of dance; her head lolling to one side and her mouth agape as he kicked the door open.

When he'd lain her on the floor inside, he found he had a greater appreciation for the size of the Maid of Tarth than he ever possessed before, even while they'd tussled together when he still had both his hands. Though perhaps this new appreciation was not entirely complimentary; the dull tear in his shoulder bringing forth another curse or two as he'd brought in their supplies, propping the door open with an unneeded pack so he could see to light the fire. He'd cursed yet more as he tried to free himself from some of his armour. The few pieces he'd managed to pry from himself now sit in an untidy pile in a darkened corner, but at least his shoulder is no longer restrained by metal and leather.

Jaime wiggles his toes in his newly abused boots and drops from his crouch with a grunt, sitting on the earthen floor next to Brienne. He should further secure their mounts, but they cannot wander far, and he is aching. It shouldn't be too hard to listen for anyone coming near, as there are no roads nearby and Jaime doubts there is a soul to be found for miles around.

He loosely crosses his legs and again looks upon the woman who has come to him with what he suspects to be a lie.

That the Hound should be holding Sansa Stark makes little or no sense, though his demanding coin for the girl's safe return would hardly count as a shock. The last he'd heard, Clegane had been seen out in the Saltpans, though this may not be true. All of Westeros swirls with rumours of the whereabouts of just about everyone. Within an hour of making camp at Pennytree, he'd walked past the fire of a new group of camp followers, only to hear laughed away mutterings that he himself was in Dorne. Were it not for the somewhat justified will for vengeance of House Martell, it sounded like quite a good idea. He is sure it must be warmer there at the least.

Either way, there is something wrong with the tale Brienne had spun for him. Even if she has lied, he trusts her, for he knows she would not break her oath to him without having been direly provoked. He _knows_ it. Yet it seems she may have encountered just such provocation. Her arm has indeed been broken, that much is now clear, the wooden splints on it an obvious sign. And though she is sleeping deeply, her breathing is shallow, in a way he can't fail to recognise as coming from damage to her ribs. He has suffered that himself often enough.

Then there is the rest of her. He had felt a very real spike of anger when he'd seen just how heavily her face was bandaged. In the camp, she'd been careful to ensure her hood covered most of her features and it was only after they left, as he rode alongside her, that the extent of the filthy linens were revealed.

He is musing over the green and bloodied stains on them, thinking that he would wish to see her plain, mannish face marked just by freckles again; that to have her tried further by ugliness is cruel, when Brienne becomes unsettled in her rest. Her head twists from side to side.

"Jaime!" she calls, so loudly he can no longer deny it and there is such fear in his name that Jaime wonders what wounds still lie hidden from his sight. She speaks again in her sleep, now a broken, desperate whisper he can barely hear. "He is not the man he was."

These words, defending him, it would seem, are so filled with her distress that he reaches out without thought, his stump running over her burning forehead. "Who are you talking to, Brienne? Where are you taking me? What must we face?"

His questions are not loud and do not touch her, but when he lifts his scarred skin away from her, Brienne's eyes flicker open. At first, she doesn't appear to notice him, her gaze roving about as if to seek something familiar, but finding nothing.  Suddenly aware that his position between her and the fire might obscure him, he leans back and this brings her eyes, _those_ eyes, to his own.

"Jaime?" she breathes. "Is this..?" She pauses in confusion and tries to raise her sword arm. A short cry erupts from her as pain makes her shake under the blankets. "No. _Real._ " She looks at him as if a nightmare is gone.

He smiles down at her. "Of course it is, wench." He leans forward again. "I'll tell you what else is real. You're _really_ heavy."

She doesn't react to that at all and her brow slowly furrows in confusion. "Did you tie me over a horse?"

"Yes," Jaime says. "I'm sorry, my Lady. I had no choice. Even _I'm_ not strong enough to have carried you this far."

"No," Brienne replies. "Thank you. Where are we?"

"A little hovel we passed by, earlier today. Other than that, I simply don't know." He pauses, and if bitterness edges the words that follow, he cannot help it.  "I have no idea where you are leading me."

He can almost see reality crashing back into her awareness and the Maid of Tarth is filled with horror. She struggles up, fighting her way out of her blankets until she too is seated, now ignoring the hurt that must be coursing through her at the effort. Her voice becomes ragged and urgent. "We have to go. _Now_."

He grasps her shoulder, holding her firmly in place. "I'm not sure that would be wise."

_I'm not sure any of this is._

Brienne looks at him with such sadness that he can hardly bear it himself. "But the Hound - "

"Yes?" He asks quickly, aware that he is being harder than he would prefer to be with her. "The _Hound?"_

She flinches as if he had struck her. His truth, that he doesn't believe her, is out, and it is clear to her. He eases his grip on her shoulder and watches in silence as her features are wracked by conflict.  He wants to urge her to tell him, to force her to, but is well aware such a path will only strengthen her resolve not to speak. So he waits, feeling her shudder under his fingers, until she whispers, "The child will die if we don't get there in time."

At last, a truth, which reveals a lie. "There is a child then." _Yet you mention no names, wench._ "But not the Stark girl, I think".

She pales. "I - " Her head drops to her chest as if she is being crushed by an enormous weight and her large lips move in a small way. It seems as though she is arguing with herself in her fever. It reminds him of an old tale he thought he'd forgotten, even if he doubts she would like hearing it.

Jaime can only see her in this distress for so long, so he moves his fingers from shoulder to jaw, lifting her face until he can see her fully again. That he knows she has lied is not the only truth he has for her. "Brienne. It doesn't matter. I trust you."  Blue eyes slam shut, but he will not let her push him away now. "I am going with you willingly, despite your being simply the worst liar in the Seven Kingdoms. But not now." Her eyes reopen, and she looks trapped and weary. "Not tonight and possibly not tomorrow. You have to rest." Brienne opens her mouth to protest, but he will not have it. She is a shivering mess. " _Look at yourself_. You aren't capable of travelling. And I don't want to have to tie you to a horse again." He taps under her chin with a single fingertip. "It's very difficult with one hand."

Brienne's gaze follows his hand as it drops away from her, before skipping to the flames of the small fire. "Perhaps a few hours of rest would be sensible," she says to the flames.

"I'm glad we're agreed," Jaime says. "Now get you on your back, my Lady."

That  brings her attention to him again swiftly enough, though he quells her moment of alarm by raising the blanket's edge just enough to show her he just intends to cover her with it. She lays down and he places it over her, saying nothing. That done, he goes to fetch the pack still propping the door open. It swings shut with a squeak of hinges and a loud bang as he returns to Brienne's side to sit again. He searches through their supplies and pulls out his waterskin. Uncapping it with his teeth, he offers it to the lady, who indicates she is not thirsty.

He is, and takes a few swigs of the cool water, only to then use his mouth to tug on the end of the sleeve hanging loosely around his stump. He dampens it and reseals the waterskin, placing it at his side. Brienne peers at him curiously from under the blankets, but then he swipes the wet cloth over her forehead and unblemished cheek. "There was some horse hair stuck to you," he explains.

Brienne nods in understanding, only to wrap her hand  around his empty wrist, pulling the cloth back with her thumb to reveal it. She moves her head from side to side, looking carefully at the livid scars there. "It is healing very well."

Jaime snatches his useless limb from her, his own revulsion, and his sister's, still too raw and  at odds with Brienne's accepting regard. "I would only consider it good if my hand grew back," he spits, though it makes an ugly face turn away and guilt stab clean through him. He waits for a short time, then nudges lightly at her hip, and then some more, with increasing insistence until she will look at him again. His apology must be writ all over him, because Brienne nods without his needing to speak.

They end up there together in this darkened hut, one of them mostly mended, the other decidedly not, in absolute silence. It is Jaime who, in very short order, finds he can no longer bear it. He has always been the one to break the quiet that sometimes falls between them. He is quite certain that Brienne of Tarth could maintain a stubborn silence for upwards of half a year, should she wish to. "We can't just sit here saying nothing at all, wench. Is there anything else you need?"

Maddeningly, she still remains wordless for a time and when the words do come, they are nervous, as though she feels she is taking some kind of liberty with him. "Would you mind just talking to me, Jaime?"

"What do you want to hear?" _What do you_ need _to hear?_

"I don't know." And it is obvious she doesn't, her eyes, glassy with her fever, betraying some shock that he is willing to comply with her request at all. Jaime isn't sure why. Perhaps it is his knowledge of her lie. Yet he has gone along with far more unusual appeals from her than one of simply talking, of late.

"How about one of the old tales?" he asks, aware that stories are one of the few true weaknesses in her armour. Even if her practicality demands she question almost everything she hears, he has occasionally turned her almost to stone, rigid in her eagerness, with a yarn or two. And she needs distraction from whatever they are to come up against. "The ones I'm sure you listened to, when you were a young girl?"

"Please," she quietly says.

Jaime leans closer and grins at her. "I could start with the tale of Lann the Clever."

She groans, though not from the heat of illness raging through her. "Please _don't_."

"Whatever is wrong with my most impressive forbear?"

"He wasn't clever," Brienne grimaces. "He was a thief."

"Do you really think he stole gold from the sun to put in his hair?" Jaime teases. "Honestly, Brienne, I don't think the ladder's been made that would be up to that task."

"He stole Casterly Rock."

"He won it fairly."

Unwell or no, Brienne gathers up a good glare to throw at him. "So you told me, about eight-and-fifty times, on our way to King's Landing. I don't think we'll ever agree."

"You counted?" Jaime laughs, watching her turn her face towards the fire, damn near pouting at it. "You _did_ , didn't you?"

"There seemed little else to do at the time," she grumbles.

"So. Something else." Jaime tries to think of a tale he's never told her, bar the one that came rushing back to him just moments ago. "How about the Grey King?"

That catches Brienne's interest. She nods more enthusiatically than perhaps would come to her naturally, were she more herself, but Jaime by no means minds if she is eased by his telling the older tales, as they shelter from the thickening night outside. Jaime scrapes what little he's ever heard of the Grey King together and tries not to think too hard on his brother, who used to sit with his niece and nephews whenever he got the chance; dressing history in glory and keeping two of the children, at least, charmed with his words.

"Well the Grey King doesn't seem to have had a name," Jaime begins, "or not one that I've ever heard. That's the Ironborn for you. Given how long they say he reigned over the Iron Islands, you'd think just one of his subjects could've bothered to learn how to scratch his name into some rock or other." Brienne huffs at him, but otherwise says little, looking up at him in a way that is both chiding and a touch fond.

Jaime thoroughly ignores the edge of censure in it as he goes on. "The Grey King, being of those isles, worshipped the Drowned God, and considered the Storm God, the wrecker of ships and killer of men, a being of absolute evil. And the Storm God did not act alone in his efforts to end the lives of the Ironborn. He had beasts in the sea to destroy them too. The biggest of these was Nagga, the sea-dragon. Nagga was so fierce that it is said she could make whole islands and the men living on them disappear under the waves." Jaime is watching Brienne very closely, and her sight drifting away from him is a sign that she is already meandering back into her current worries. He will avoid her doing that, if he can. So he continues, trying to recall how Tyrion was able to enthrall the children. "I did also hear a  version of this where Wyk was once a single island, but that Nagga ate into it with her jaws, creating the channel that separates Great Wyk and Old Wyk. But I've never considered that to hold any sense, given what happened later on." He waves his hand in front of her averted eyes, as if he were attempting to gain the attention of an ill-trained dog. "What do you think? Come, Brienne, _forget_ tomorrow for now."

It calls her back to him again, though she sounds beaten as she speaks. "I don't think so."

"Brienne..."

She frowns at him. "I don't think Nagga ate any of Wyk. Great or Old," she bluntly says.

It is a poor side-step, but it serves, Jaime thinks. And her gaze is now more fixed upon him, which is both unsettling and a comfort, but needful. _Stay with me here, wench._ "Good. So, the Grey King decided to fight this blight upon his people and set to sea alone in his boat. But the Storm God was angry with him and blew his hardest, sending a fierce gale to drive the Grey King's vessel onto some rocks to sink it. He sent Nagga too, and as wood was broken to splinters about him, the King found himself dragged down into the roiling depths by the sea dragon, though he still grasped his iron spear." As the fight is beginning Brienne seems to fall under a spell, those damned beautiful eyes of hers shining up at him.

"Underneath the waves they fought, man against vast monster, and the Grey King was sure he was to perish there as the sea grew dark about him. But the Drowned God would not take him. Though his struggles made his chest fill with water, he did not die and the thrashing of Nagga, wounded from the spear of the king, beached them on the isle of Old Wyk." Now Brienne looks like an overgrown child, utterly rapt.

"When this happened, the balance of the engagement changed. Whereas, in the water, Nagga had been most graceful and dangerous, on land it was the man who moved more freely as the beast struggled under its own vast weight. Even whilst he coughed up the waters of the sea, the Grey King drove his spear up through the sea dragon's jaw and into it's brain." The Maid of Tarth actually gasps at that and Jaime chuckles lowly before continuing.

"Nagga was dead and the king had stolen her living fire as he killed her. The Storm God was so furious at his loss that the squall he'd sent became stronger, as he tried to drag his faithful servant back under the waves which had been her home. But it didn't work, the winds and hail only scouring the flesh from her bones. In the end, the victor used her ribs to build his hall on what would come to be known as Nagga's Hill. He fashioned a throne from her jawbone, a crown from her teeth and used her fire to keep Grey King's Hall warm."

Jaime pulls up his left leg in front of himself and drapes his arm loosely over his knee. "It is told that the King ruled the Iron Islands for a thousand years, though as his people couldn't write, I believe they might have had trouble counting too." That prods her into pouting a little and Jaime simply can't resist going futher. "They also said he wed a mermaid, which would make for a strange marriage bed."

Brienne simply narrows her eyes at him as if confused. "Did you choose this tale because of the _mermaid_ , Jaime?"

"No, but I was always curious, I'll admit," he shrugs. "I was never quite sure how it worked."

"I -" Brienne starts, only to come to an abrupt halt, all wariness in her.

"Go on," Jaime encourages warmly, with another tap of his stump to her hip.

Her next words tumble out of her. "I once overheard my father's Master-at-Arms talking to the other men." She comes to another swift stop, appearing for all the world as if she doesn't know why she is telling this tale of her own, or if she even should. He just nods shortly at her and waits. "I...I had no idea what he meant at the time, but Goodwin said he thought that people had it all wrong with mermaids. That the _other_ half was fish." By the time she has finished talking, embarrassment has shifted the clammy pallor of her skin into something far darker, and Jaime can't help but think that this is something she would never have shared, were she not labouring under this fever.

A hundred taunts roll through his mind, as they ever have with Brienne. But instead he lifts his stump from where he had unknowingly rested it, far too comfortably against that hip of hers, and places it on her forehead again, now in the manner of a Maester. "I think we should move on before you set light to your own skin, my Lady," he says dryly.

"Thank you," she whispers with relief.

"We are close to the end, in any case," he tells her. "After ruling for a thousand years with his improbable wife, the Grey King died, having spent all of that time planning a war against the Storm God, who still brought death to his people." He lets his tone change from that of a storyteller back to his own. "Really, Brienne, I'm starting to think this man was an idiot. A thousand years? You'd think he could've done a little better in that time." She smiles up at him, though it is made a small thing by the injury to her face which his fingers again itch to reveal. She is hurting and he does not like it.

_What has been done to you, my Lady?_

He doesn't ask her, but his concern makes the ending of his tale somewhat short. "The Storm God lashed Old Wyk with another huge storm and when it calmed, the Sea Throne was gone forever. And that is that."

In truth, he feels he's done the ending no justice. He can well remember Tyrion making it last an hour or more, with all sorts of ridiculous things that Jaime has always been convinced he made up on the spot. He really can't think of a good reason for anyone to make robes out of seaweed, let alone a king. Yet Brienne is staring at him with a gratefulness so large it warms him, even if it makes him angry too. The Maid of Tarth has spoken rarely of her childhood, but what little Jaime has heard of it has been enough to tell him that this honourable woman has encountered scant love of any sort, even as she grew to become who she is. And for him, that makes her extraordinary; that what she is inside hasn't been broken by what had broken him far more easily, he thinks.

He stretches his legs back out along the floor and reaches out to tuck the blankets more tightly about Brienne's shoulders, for all that it isn't truly needed. That done, he turns to the fire, and carefully stacks more thin pieces of firewood about the blaze to give them warmth for longer.

When that is finished, glances at Brienne again and is surprised to find her almost alert and looking directly at him.

"Well if you aren't going to sleep yet, whom shall I speak of next?" he asks.

Brienne seems to consider this far too seriously before offering a timid question. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Tell me of the day you..."

" _No_ ," he says, and the word might as well be a babe lobbed from a trebuchet, for the sheer force to be felt in it. "Not that."

"Jaime, you misunderstand me," she adds with some urgency.

 _"Do I?"_ he bites out.

"Yes," she replies, gazing up at him without fear in the face of his anger. "I don't want to know about Aerys. I want to know about _you_. I want to know how you broke your fast that day. I want to know what you did in your morning duties, away from the king." Her voice roughens, becoming loaded with a care he doesn't even know how to accept. "I want to know about Ser Jaime Lannister, when he was just Ser Jaime Lannister. Before he became the Kingslayer. What were you like?" she finishes quietly.

" _Just_ Ser Jaime Lannister?" he says, quick as a whip. Brienne doesn't answer, for she knows as well as he that words can shield and hide as well as hurt, and that is why he uses them so often. He cannot conceal himself from Brienne. He isn't sure he wants to.

Jaime tries to recall when anybody had ever asked him about what he once was, only to find that nobody ever has. Not since that day. Part of him had burned away as blood ran on his blade after all, and here lies the only person in the world to ever be interested in the knight who was lost, when the Kingslayer was made.

"I haven't thought about early that day in a long time," Jaime says, scratching at his beard whilst he tries to think back to the more mundane things that occurred before he changed the world. "Spiced mutton stew," he whispers. "It was spiced mutton stew in the morning." He laughs. "It was wonderful! The meat was so soft on the tongue. I'd forgotten it."

Brienne of Tarth almost bloody gapes at him in disbelief. "Spiced mutton stew? During a _siege_?"

"That hardly counted as siege, wench," Jaime points out. "Pycelle saw to that, the withered old fool."

He can see Brienne trying not to laugh herself. "You never speak of him, but to insult him shortly after."

"And with good reason. He is a cunt so staggeringly large I doubt that even - "

"Jaime!" she stops him, her tone full of rebuke, though her eyes are shining up at him. "Your _duties_?"

He fiddles with her blanket again and wonders quite when he had decided he enjoyed Brienne's tendency towards ordering him about. As it has been there all along, he gives up and settles in to tell her. "The sack of the city had begun. Aerys was worried about my father, and rightly so. The king seemed to find some amusement in squaring me up against him. He kept me close, most of the time. His sense of reason was long since lost. I have never known when he laced the Red Keep with wildfire. I have long since suspected it was quite late on, so that if my father succeeded in any attack, he would still see me burn."

"Not _later_ , Jaime," Brienne says. " _That morning."_

_As you wish, wench._

"I was to defend the keep. The gates to it were sealed and all the supplies were laid in."

"Including spiced mutton stew," she dryly whispers.

Jaime grins at her. "Including a deliciously spiced mutton stew. I can hardly remember anything else...wait, I think I can." He is completely unapologetic when he adds, "I hate to disappoint you, my Lady, but I do believe I did violence that _morning,_ too."

"Really? Was it for an equally good cause?"

Her softly spoken words grasp at him, but not unpleasantly, and Jaime finds he is more glad than ever to have shared his reasons for killing a king with this lone, warrior maid. "I would say yes, though perhaps no lives were saved and nothing was truly changed."

"Go on."

"Was it that day? I think it was," Jaime mutters, and feels as if he is scrambling to assemble fragments of something broken and made small within himself. "It _must've_ been. Again, something I'd forgot. Thank you."

Brienne nods, a tiny gesture, and makes to turn onto her side, facing the fire, but the pressure on her healing arm is too much. She rolls away again with a cry, her lips pulled back as she gulps in air. It reveals fully to Jaime what he should  have seen when he was carrying her earlier. A lot of her teeth are gone or broken too. Brienne sees him noticing the damage that was hidden behind her thick lips and no doubt his glower of rage at it as well. She looks up at him bleakly. "I said go on."

Jaime taps on the earthen floor with his fingers, deciding right then that whatever they must face, he will take ten teeth for every one she has lost. _We will speak of this later, wench._ He parries her look with a dark one of his own, only then allowing himself to reach back into the past. He can feel her watching him, even as he closes his eyes, letting his anger go. _For now._

Once calm, he gazes into the flames and adds a single stick, though there is no need. "Despite my being watched...," he pauses and then tilts his head, "...gods, I'd forgotten _another_ thing." He reaches down with his stump, as if to tap at Brienne's arm, but stops himself just in time. He has no wish to hurt her. "For those last few days, a small boy, clearly sent by Aerys, followed me _everywhere_ , with the most oversized wineskin I've ever seen, dispensing it to all and sundry in my wake. It ran from his shoulder to his knees." He chuckles, though it is half-hearted. "He was a skinny little thing. How his arms must have ached."

"Do you think he lived?"

Her hushed question stills him. "I don't know, Brienne. In all honesty, I have never considered the fate of the boy from that day to this."

If he expects judgment from her, it is not what he gets. Instead, she simply stares at him thoughtfully and says, "The Red Keep fell easily once the king was dead, did it not? Perhaps he survived."

"It is possible," Jaime confirms. "But that would be later, and _you_ wish to hear about the morning."

"Please," she replies. "You said something about doing violence?"

"Bloodthirsty wench," he says, gaining a small smile from her. "So, I had to inspect the walls. Those were secure, though I asked for more pitch to be brought up. Can you believe there was pitch in the Red Keep as well? Not that I suppose it would've mattered. Then I went up to the roof. Have you ever been up on it?" Brienne shakes her head. "I guessed not. It affords a good view of the whole city, apart from Flea Bottom, which you can't see at all. That may explain some of the things that go on there. Anyway, I found too many of those pulled in from the City Watch up top. Far too many." He stops and glances back towards the closed door, though he isn't sure why. He turns back to Brienne. "I would not wish to pain you, my Lady, but you are all too aware of the sport men will make of women in times of war."

"And otherwise," she says. Too blandly. "Go on, Ser Jaime."

Jaime notes her use of his title, though it affords him no warmth as he explains further. "As the city was being sacked, they watched the women run and gambled on who would escape my own father's troops. And who would _not_."

Her reaction is a sharply indrawn breath, which hisses out of her nose. "It made you angry," she then states.

"It did, Brienne." Yet he would not have her think him good for that. They have yet to deal with her lie and he won't muddy the waters with more of his own. "But I still don't know why. I will not pretend to you that I have always thought as I do, right here and now. Even yesterday, you might have found my thoughts a touch different." He bends over so he can look directly down into those astonishing eyes of hers. "You have a way of changing my thinking, my Lady. You bring back what has long since left me, though I do not mind it." He sits up straight again, unwilling to let himself drown in blue and firelight, to be swayed by the belief in him pooling there. "However, I am a man and I have been in many battles. I've seen what comes after many times. I'm used to it. I don't know, to this day, if the Ser Jaime Lannister you seek to find was angry because of the women, or angrier because of the allegiances of the men chasing them. Or even simply because the men I was commanding were ignoring their own duties."

"At least you were angry, when the others weren't," Brienne says, though she seems somewhat smaller under her blankets for a moment. Yet then she brightens. "How many of them did you hurt?"

She is aware he would not have killed any of the men he'd needed at that time and he likes it. "Maybe a half dozen. Even so, I don't think you would've thought well of me at all then, Brienne," Jaime smiles. "I was far more arrogant than I am now."

"More arrogant? Is that possible?"

He laughs and groans together as he stretches out his right arm, trying to dull the ache in his sore shoulder. "Yes. And I'd have had no time for the Maid of Tarth, no matter her stifling levels of honour." He rests his useless stump back down between them. "Though that has changed, I'm pleased to say."

Brienne looks up at with him with such affection that he shifts his attention away from her to the wall on the other side of the hut. "Was there anything good about that day, apart from the mutton?"

"Yes," Jaime says, feeling his eyebrows arch as he watches their shadows dance. "There was, as it happens, Brienne. There was a _woman_."

He can hear the shock in her suddenly stuttering breaths and he bites his lip as he turns back to her. He can see the white all around her eyes and he runs his fingers through his hair before lending her any reassurance that his old words were no lie. "Don't be stupid, Brienne. It was nothing of note. You _know_ my history." _And it is history now,_ Jaime thinks. It does not hurt him nearly as much as he had always feared it might. "I was never sure, but she might have been a new cook or something along those lines. She trailed me for an hour, at least, and was all arms and offerings until she was told to do otherwise. She was short thing, but enthusiastic and quite pretty, if memory serves. She kept reaching up under my cloak and finding her way through my armour to pinch my arse." He shrugs at the woman lying on the floor. "It was bruised for a week afterwards, truth be told."

Her surprise allayed, Brienne seems curious. "Why did you wait for an hour?"

"I didn't say it was _me_ who sent her away," Jaime grins. "Isn't it rude to rebuff the advances of a lady? Besides, I was a seventeen."

What would be explanation enough for anybody else appears to only sadden Brienne. "Seventeen. So young. Barely more than a boy," she whispers with a measure of sympathy.

Jaime neither wants to dwell too much on _that_ , or on anything else outside of this place. Not tonight. "Younger even than you were when we first met, though I'd been two years a knight." He  picks up the waterskin and uncaps it to drink from it once more. Then he goes on, with what he hopes is one of his more brilliant smiles. "Yet man enough to be chased about by an amorous cook for an hour."

Brienne laughs at him, or with him. He isn't sure about anything other than her believing him hopeless, given the tone of it, but in no bad way.

Then, however, she shrieks in sudden pain and tries not to grasp at the bandages covering her cheek. It makes her twist under the blankets and hurt herself again, though whether it is her ribs or her arm is impossible to know.

Jaime drops the waterskin, uncaring as it spills over his breeches, and rips back the blanket to pull her to him. He is on his knees before he knows it, his forearms hauling her up. He tries to be careful in the movement, putting no pressure on the sides of her chest, but still she sounds like a wounded animal when she twists her legs around and slumps down against him, all short breath and harsh whines escaping her.

She truly is heavy in her weakened state and he can do nothing more but support her as well as he can, shifting his stance and holding his arms near straight out before him, so he doesn't harm her further than he thinks he already has.

_Well, that was a stupid idea._

He waits as the Maid of Tarth calms, though it takes some time and his shoulder is screaming at him as the damp flesh of her undamaged cheek burns into it. But the labouring of her ribs eventually begins to ease, and he asks, "Are you well, Brienne?"

"No," she grunts against him, pushing weakly away until she tips back onto her arse, shaking and weak. She is swaying, and Jaime only just catches her at her waist with his empty wrist.

"Steady now. I meant - "

"I know," she says, though she doesn't enlighten him further. It is obvious that she is fighting a renewed wave of her fever. His questions will have to wait, if he is to find sense in the answers. He reaches out to blindly grasp the neck of the waterskin, now lying almost empty on the floor. There is only a small amount left swishing around in it, but it will serve.

"Brienne, you'll have to help me here. Can you do that?"She nods and he rests his stump at the back of her neck and lifts the skin to her lips. The wench does nothing all the while but look at him, other than part her lips to drink.

"We could sit here like this all night, my lady, but it might be better if you - "

"Hmm," she mumbles, spurred into movement by his voice, lifting the end of the skin and drinking every last drop. It doesn't matter, for there is another, though Jaime tries to think where hers is in this darkened room as he discards the drained one.

"Thank you, Jaime."

He smiles at her. "It was nothing. Now lie you down. _Again_." He helps her to stretch herself out and tugs fiercely at the blankets now wrapped about her legs. "You're a terrible amount of trouble when you're unwell. Has anybody ever told you that?"

Brienne snorts up at him. "You're saying that to me?"

He covers her over and closes her mouth gently, tipping up her chin with two fingers. "It makes you talk too much."

Through swollen lips and broken teeth, she grouses, " _You're_ saying - "

"See?" he lightly interrupts. "You're running your mouth like a fishwife."

Brienne glares at him as he sits back down next to her, though it doesn't last. There is still some fight in her, Jaime is heartened to see it as she says, "Well, an idiot was supposed to be keeping me entertained, but I think he _forgot_."

_There she is._

"So I did," he says, with no lack of fondness. "Yet it seems this tale is very trying for us both, so I'll make the rest short." But Jaime can't think what else there is to tell. "I killed my king, when the sun began to wane in the sky. I was found on the Iron Throne by Ned Stark, the only other person I've ever met whose sense of unspeakable honour could trouble that of the Maid of Tarth."

Jaime rises to his feet and looks down at her for a moment, bitterness flashing through him, quick and hot. "And then I was the Kingslayer." He steps around her to pick up her pack and brings it back, dropping it on the floor. "So I was to be known by everyone living, for many years." He crouches over the pack and searches it awkwardly, retrieving the full waterskin and leaning over Brienne to cast everything else to the other side of her. All the while, he ignores the waves of sadness and pity he can feel, more than see, coming from the sick woman in his care. He does not want her pity. He doesn't deserve it.

He sits again, well aware that his breeches are soaked already and shakes off this bleak turn of mind. Instead, he lets a slow smile take him as he raises his gaze back to Brienne's, determined to halt the blasted sympathy practically pouring from her. "But then, one day, I was cornered in a bathtub by giant woman, stuffed so completely full of honour that it stretched her bones, until her head smacked into archways. She fancied herself a swordswench, if you can believe such a tale."

It works. By the time he stops speaking, the lady is stunned. "I...I did _not_. Corner you," she sputters out.

Jaime lifts his forearms and moves them in the air like a trader's scales in a marketplace. "Sitting in the corner of a bathtub. Cornering a helpless, fevered man in a bathtub. There are so many similarities, don't you think? I know how _I_ prefer to remember it."

"You...but...that's _not_ what happened, Jaime!"

He taps lightly on her shoulder with his stump. "Let an old man entertain some amusing thoughts in his infirmity, wench."

"You are neither old nor infirm," she sternly tells him, making Jaime laugh.

"Well, if tales of my glorious knighthood aren't enough for you, then why don't we delve back into the more ancient ones?" He thinks of the old tale that had come rushing back to him earlier, but this isn't the time, and there is one related which she might enjoy. "There once was a fierce northern knight. A true giant, who is most famed for his bow, his blood-stained cudgel and for having one eye."

A soft 'oh' emerges from the Maid of Tarth. "Ser Godsric Umber," she whispers.

"Yes. Have you heard it before? I can always find something else," he dryly offers. "I wouldn't want to _bore_ you."

"No," Brienne says, pulling her blankets up to her chin. "I like this one."

He briefly hunches over her. "Then cease your incessant wittering, woman. You're putting me off my stride."

Brienne attempts to glare at him but seems unable to, settling for silently mouthing the word 'idiot' at him in its place. Jaime rubs his arm and shoulder with an unapologetic grin, as he begins another tale.

"There once was a young man of the North, by the name of Godsric Umber. His House was little more than a motley group of hunters at that time, settling in their seat only when the winter bit hardest. There  was no real nobility in them at all."

Brienne rolls her eyes at him and Jaime does the same in her direction. She almost smiles , which he finds encouraging. "Godsric's mother was sick for most of his childhood, for life in the North was hard and she had been born in the warm South. Godsric loved his mother a great deal, so when she was widowed, he stayed by her side, spurning any idea of being wed, so that he might hunt for her. He did not want her to starve.

"Over the course of the next few years, he became the most able hunter above the Neck. With spear and with bow, it is said he could fell a deer from a  mile away."  Jaime frowns at that. "I think that might be an exaggeration. Besides, I hate archers. Do you want me to go straight to Bonecrusher?"

Brienne shakes her head. Jaime groans a little, thinking that he might, in fact, have chosen badly. It is only now he has begun that he is remembering how much of that bloody bow is in it. "After illness took his mother too, Godsric heard of an archery contest to be held in King's Landing, with the prize being a bow made of pure gold." He lets an amused chuckle loose at that. "Clearly, Brienne, he wasn't the sharpest dagger in the armoury, because anybody with half a mind knows that would never work."

"Jaime," the Maid of Tarth sighs, tired under her blankets.

"So our young hero travelled to the capital. There, he encountered the most wondrous things he had ever seen; more buildings than he knew how to count, more people than he had thought lived and colours and tastes from all over the world." Jaime thinks of a time he'd heard this from Tyrion and adds, "No doubt there were some very pretty whores too."

_"Jaime!"_

"It doesn't matter, Brienne," he reassures her. "I'm certain young Godsric wasn't distracted by the varied charms of King's Landing. He surely went to compete straight away." Blue eyes, bright with fever, narrow at him in warning and Jaime decides to stick true to the tale. For a little while, at least.

"For all of the richness of the reward, Godsric found his way past opponent after opponent with ease. But it was a different story, when only two archers remained. He was shocked to find himself facing a boy of but twelve namedays. The boy was small and ugly. Godsric thought he looked like a weasel and told him so, as they readied themselves for their contest. 'You may call me Weasel all you please,' the boy said, 'but I will win the Golden Bow.'

"For hours, they matched each other, shot for shot.

"So many arrows were released that the straw bales bearing the targets kept falling to pieces. New ones had to be brought in from the nearest farms. Some swore that the streets of the city were knee deep in cut straw for days afterwards.

"It is said that the sun sank and the torches had to be lit, to see them battle through the night. Still, a winner could not be found. And still, they drew their bows.

"In the end, the Golden Bow was won not by skill, but by nature. Being but a young boy, and having had no rest for more than a night and a day, Weasel fell to the ground in a deep sleep. With his next arrow, Godsric was the victor."

Jaime taps at his knee, only now realizing that the spill of water on his breeches looks unfortunate. "I don't know about you, Brienne, but I've always thought that winning a contest because a boy fell asleep wasn't particularly glorious."

"Or honourable," she says in solemn agreement. "Go on, Jaime."

So he does, a children's tale thickening the air around them. "The King was so impressed with this mighty contest that the northern hunter was knighted on the spot. He spoke words of praise for the defeated boy too, though he did not hear them, and made sure to leave a purse full of gold coin, so that the child could travel home in comfort.

"But when Weasel woke, he was distraught. Being so young, he felt his loss most keenly and did not want to return to his family feeling such shame. Instead, he begged Ser Godsric to allow him to take on the role of his squire. Underneath his fierce features, the new knight was kind, and as he had no squire, he could see no reason to refuse this brave child a place at his side.

"And so it was that the adventures of Ser Godsric and Weasel began."

He pauses and takes in the sight of Brienne. Where yesterday he had thought her aged almost beyond recognition, here, in this place with a rotten roof and tales of old beneath it, she is young, though battered and pained. Her gaze is fixed to his lips, which he can't deny to himself stirs his cock; but he thinks nothing more on it when her eyebrows start to twitch. _She is in no state to be thinking of the touch of anyone's mouth, let alone yours, you fool. She's wondering where your voice has gone._

So he continues. "For three years Ser Godsric travelled Westeros as a hedge knight with his squire, offering their services to noble Houses and to those less so, in times of strife. From Oldtown to the Whispering Woods they roamed and wherever they stayed honour was found in their actions. Those who fought beside them at the battle of Stone Mill would later insist that the sky was darkened by the number of arrows which sang from the Golden Bow of Ser Godsric Umber alone. That the fight would have been lost without him.  

"The reputation of the pair grew, but that did not serve them as well as they did others. Ser Godsric and Weasel believed that knights _had_ to aid those in need and often helped people who had no means of repaying them."

Jaime lets out a slow breath, tinged with mocking disappointment. "I swear, my Lady, if you opened up the guts of either of them, you'd find nothing other than barrels of stupidity."

Blue eyes rise from his lips to meet his own shade of green, with a hint of admonishment. "You would not," she mutters.

Jaime quietly laughs at that. "What an _excellent_ argument, Brienne. But I'll bow to it, for you aren't at your best. Should I let you rest, or carry on?"

"More, please," the lady says.

"If that is what you'd like. They _aided_ folk. They did so even after Weasel's gold was _gone_." He is clearly sounding a bit scathing about the whole idea, because there is a wordless moan of protest at his side. Jaime reins himself in, falling back into the subtler tones of storytelling. "At Darry, Ser Godsric went to sell his bow to a visiting merchant, sure that the fame of it would make it worth even more than the gold from which it was made. But Weasel begged and pleaded with him not to do so, because the honour of them both was tied up in it. He said that he would not so much as look at anything bought with the coin from such a trade. So they continued as they were. Though the Bearer of the Golden Bow became renowned across Westeros, talked of in the taverns and the feasting halls, he and his squire lived in poverty, often going without the merest morsel to eat for days on end, when the hunt did not favour them.

"Then things got worse.

"Winter was coming and despite their having few supplies, Ser Godsric felt obliged to travel to Last Hearth, his family's lone settlement, to help his uncles when the cold descended. He offered to free Weasel from his service, but the loyal squire would hear nothing of it. So north they went. But ice was already beginning to swallow the world, moving southronly faster than a man can walk, or so it was told."

Jaime rubs again at his shoulder and he grunts as it clicks. "I'm not sure I believe that either, Brienne. I just think men of the north are a miserable bunch who like to boast, making their trials sound bigger than they are. Like fishermen with fish." The nagging ache in him eased, he holds out both arms in front of him, moving them farther apart in short bursts. Though it is a tired thing, laughter comes from Brienne; more a short, wary series of huffs than anything else this time. 

It warms him as he takes the tale into winter. "During a snowstorm, Ser Godsric and Weasel took to shelter in a ruined castle, the name of which had already been lost by time. In truth, there was little of it left. Most of the stone had been robbed away over the years and all that was left was a tower. Wearily, they climbed the stairs and huddled together under their thin blankets, trying to keep warm and find some sleep.

"But this was not just a tower. It was once a ravenloft. Wild ravens lived there still. And it is not only people who find food hard to secure when winter comes. Perhaps the birds thought the pair dead from the cold. They might not have cared. Who can know, with ravens? But Ser Godsric Umber woke to find the largest raven plucking out his right eye and swallowing it whole."

Brienne writhes fleetingly next to him, in the end just lifting her head. "I heard it was his _left_ eye."

"Well, I was told it was his right," Jaime replies.

She becomes determined, her mouth clamped shut as she appears to try and think through her fever. He can't help but admire her for it, for all that she looks like she's been chewing on a bee. "That doesn't make any sense, Jaime," she eventually says, her words as strained as her bent neck. "Using a bow would be hard enough for him with just a right eye. It would be _impossible_ with only his left."

Jaime shifts onto his knees once more and gently pushes on her brow until her head rests more comfortably again. "Then, as it pleases my lady, we shall say the raven plucked out and ate his left eye." He gives in to the temptation of brushing back some of the hair stuck to her heated forehead and Brienne looks up at him with such a guileless happiness, in spite of everything, that he swiftly moves away, not wanting to feel too much. "Though that isn't how I remember it," he adds, producing another few short huffs from the woman underneath the blanket. "Where was I?"

"Bonecrusher," is the reply. She seems almost excited by that. Jaime can't help but agree. He really does loathe archers.

"Of course," he says. "Ser Godsric's cries of pain rang so loudly in the tower that a timber fell from the roof." Jaime glances upwards, silently ordering the roof here to attempt no such thing. "He picked up the beam and tried to hit the raven, but it flew out of the window with his eye in its belly. This angered the knight and he beat at the walls and the floor, making the beam smaller and smaller, until his rage and hurt were gone.

"'What shall I do now, Weasel? How can be the Bearer of the Golden Bow if I cannot see well enough to use it?'

"'We shall think of something,' his squire told him. 'Especially now that you have two weapons.'

"Ser Godsric looked at the timber in his hands and found that his fury had fashioned it into the perfect cudgel. 'I will call it Bonecrusher.'

"'You couldn't even crush the raven with it,' Weasel said.

"'Well, I shall crush its bones if it comes back,' Godsric replied."

He is made quiet by the single, frustrated kick of a muffled boot on the earthen floor. "You added that last part, Jaime!"

He shrugs. "Can you think of any other way that talk could've gone?" He watches while, as ever, Brienne gives this simple question far too much deliberate thought, before allowing herself the tiniest shake of her head.

"Well then, if I may continue. After two days of rest, so that Ser Godsric might recover, they set out again into the heart of true winter. The snow became deeper and deeper, the drifts of it soon big enough to cover a man's head when standing. They made snowshoes when they found the ends of coppiced wood, so that they might not sink into the frozen wastes . Even Godsric could not quite remember how his family had survived the last winter, for he had been but a babe in arms at the time. But his elders had told him enough of the skills needed that, after many, many days and nights, they made it to Last Hearth alive. 

"Yet his family was not there. Last Hearth was standing empty, with not a living soul to be found. They had heard no word of his cousins and uncles as they travelled to this barren place, so Godsric knew they must have gone yet further north. After speaking with Weasel, he decided they would do so as well.

I shan't bore you with more endless trekking through snow. The only thing that really happened was that incident with the bear and Bonecrusher," Jaime grins, "but I hardly think _we_ need to hear a tale about a sleeping bear." The Maid of Tarth hums happily enough in response as sleep begins to fold in around her.

"All that matters is that they got some meat and fur out of it.

"As they drew closer to his family, Ser Godsric was unsettled about them finding out that he could no longer use his famous bow. He did not want to disappoint them, but whilst his sense of direction was still excellent, he could no longer tell how far away things were. Yet clever Weasel had devised a plan, so that he might bear the Golden Bow with honour once more. His squire would stand at Godsric's shoulder and tell him how distant any target was. With but a few hours practise, it became clear that this would work. The knight's muscles and bones remembered how distances _felt_. He only needed to be _told_ them.

"They stayed in Moles Town only for long enough to find out that the Umbers were at Castle Black, having answered the call from the Night's Watch to fight the encroaching monsters of the North."

There is more agitation under the poor, cursed blankets and Jaime waits for the next complaint. It isn't long in coming, Brienne blinking away the call of sleep as she does so. "They weren't alive during the Long Night, Jaime. They came later. There were no monsters."

"Do you want to tell this story, wench?"

"No."

"Good," he says, lifting up the edge of the blanket and dropping it over her mouth. "Then from now on, it shall go as I please."

Brienne puffs at the blanket until her lips are free, frowning unconvincingly up at him as he goes on. "Their arrival at Castle Black was greeted with great joy, though those already there had been hard pressed by wights and spiders of ice."

This is met with a sluggish moan of outrage. "Ice spiders, Jaime? Now you're just making things up!"

"You've never heard of them?" he asks, teasingly. "I suppose you do come from a tiny little island hanging off the arse end of Westeros." Brienne makes as if to hit him, but is too spent in her fever to free her uninjured arm. Instead, Jaime finds himself subjected to a  tired glare from narrowed blue eyes. "Honestly, Brienne," he adds, "next you'll be telling me you've never heard of ice dragons."

The glare is replaced by a sort of mild pity at his general hopelessness. "Do tell," she mutters, only to yawn with great care, cautiously keeping her mouth near closed as she somehow brings forth a noise that, were it just a touch lower, could well be heard coming from a rutting stag.

"I will," he says, watching her eyes flutter shut. "I've always thought the bit with the raven the best part of Ser Godsric's tale, so I'll try to make this more entertaining."

Jaime quickly attempts to gather all that he has ever heard of the monsters of the north, but there is so little that he knows he will be forced to invent almost everything. Lannisters lie, it is so, yet this seems a difficult, if harmless enough way of doing it.

"The Long Night came, and it was indeed very long. Endless waves of monsters threw themselves at Castle Black, seeking to overwhelm the living. But with Ser Godsric and Weasel perched atop the tallest tower, raining arrows down onto their foes, the people there were made safer. For what felt like years, they fought. And they were mighty.

"Until the ice dragon came." Jaime believes Brienne is quickly falling into a deep, heat-riddled sleep, for she hardly reacts to those words at all, whereas, when she is herself, the mere word 'dragon' would still her, mid-sword stroke. Or at least he suspects it could. He thinks he might be able to end this tale for just a moment, when Brienne, unaware though she is, turns her face towards the fire, her eyebrows furrowed as if she is listening.

"More, my Lady?" he says. She seems to rest better at that alone, the tension in her lessening.

Jaime tries to call upon every fanciful word he'd told his brother on the rare occasions when he'd been able to, without thinking too much of the young boy who turned into the man who'd killed their father. And with those came every word that blighted child he'd so loved had shared with him, too. "With scales of the weakest, coldest blue, which, almost as a jest from the Gods, shone like rainbows in the torchlight, it came sweeping down from the darkness. There was no bloody drool in its great maw, but instead streams of icy slush ran out from around teeth so sharp and pale, they were as blades made of glass. Where its warmer cousins would burn the flesh from the living, leaving them blackened husks, the ice dragon's breath was a bitter, cutting wind that froze people like statues, as perfect as in life, but still very dead. The people in Castle Black had come to fear the ice dragon more than any other, not because this one was closest, but because it's cruel air did not catch flame. Sometimes it made snow to obscure itself, but otherwise its dreaded breath could not be seen at all, to be avoided. And it was said that just the beating of its wings could freeze a babe solid in a lone stroke."

It is both easier and harder than he would have believed, his chest heaving as he says, "This would be Ser Godsric's and Weasel's greatest foe and they would not both survive it."

_Tyrion. Father._

He looks down. The Maid of Tarth is now truly asleep beside him, gentle snorings emerging from her nose, but it is less painful to continue than to be silent. Jaime remembers all he can about the cold of the north and the dragons of the south and east and weaves more of this tale, though it is more for himself than for Brienne.

"When the ice dragon came, it headed for the highest tower, as if it knew where our two heroes were to be found. It tore at the pillars around them. Ser Godsric used his bow, but it was useless, the arrows he fired clattering off the icy scales, leaving the roaring beast unwounded. The knight was reaching for Bonecrusher when there was a cry at his side. He turned, only to see dear Weasel being clutched within sharp claws and carried off into the darkness of night. He would never see his squire alive again.

"Ser Godsric bellowed with anger and fear unending, only to find that the ice dragon came back at his dreadful cries. But Weasel was gone and he thought perhaps that the monster had eaten him. This drove him to a state of madness and with Bonecrusher firmly grasped in his hands, the Bearer of the Golden Bow stepped forward, determined to end the dragon.

"For an hour or more, he beat at the snout of the beast, which seemed to want to lift him away too, for it did not kill him with its icy breath. Ser Godsric thought it certain that he would die there, but in the end, a final blow from Bonecrusher shattered the dragon into a million shards of ice that dropped all the way down to the snow covered ground like so many daggers.

"I hope there was nobody standing underneath, Brienne, even if I've just spun this out of the air."

He laughs at that, albeit that it is a hollow, shallow thing, made so by too much thought about what is broken and concern about the woman who is sleeping beside him. He wants her to rest while she can. What has happened with his family is done, irretrievably, and he mourns it. But whilst he and Brienne are here, wherever they are, he can try to fool himself into thinking that her loyalty is unchanged. Though it is now obvious that this is not the case.

Jaime finds yet more words spilling from his mouth, for all that he as good as doesn't hear them himself. "Weasel did not emerge from the belly of the beast, so Godsric thought his squire might yet be alive. He searched desperately for him. It was some hours before Weasel was found, done to death not by the dragon, but by the cold alone. His squire's body was discovered, curled up in the snow as if he were in peaceful sleep, just outside of Castle Black. Whether he had fallen from the talons of the ice dragon, or the beast had placed him there for reasons unknown, simply didn't matter. The most loyal squire ever to have drawn breath was truly gone. Ser Godsric's renewed grief was such that he tore at the Wall with his bare hands, creating the tunnel that now leads right through it, into Castle Black."

He ceases his talk, though he doesn't know why, only to understand after a brief spell of silence, broken only by snoring which has become remarkably less ladylike, that he was expecting some kind of objection from his companion.

She doesn't give it, yet he chooses to reply to his now imagined and stern verbal foe. "I know that the Wall wasn't there during the Long Night, my Lady of Tarth, but it was in all of the stories of Godsric I've ever truly been told. And I quite liked the idea of a man punching his way through it, even if it might result in a broken and twisted finger or two. So I thought I'd keep that part."

Jaime brushes his lone thumb over the stopper on the skin. Back and forth. Back and forth. "So ends this tale. It took a darker turn than I'd intended, my lady, but I suppose Weasel still died of the cold and Godsric still made the tunnel." He smiles down at Brienne, though she cannot see it. "And although I've heard of them, I don't believe in ice spiders or ice dragons. I think that's just the Northern folk, griping again." He pauses, considering what he has just fashioned with his words. "I suppose it made for a better ending than Godsric cudgeling an army of men to death though," he comments. "That became dull after an hour or so."

He lets his voice drift into silence. His throat is dry, so he opens the new waterskin, takes a swig and seals it again. For he is not done yet. Now that he is sure the Brienne of Tarth is asleep, Ser Jaime Lannister has another tale to tell. He looks down at the sleeping Maid for some time, only to speak again, now far more somberly.

"Of course, there is another version of Ser Godsric's tale, but I've only ever heard it once, when I was a boy in the Westerlands." Jaime thinks back to that day so long ago, when his mother still lived. He'd become separated from her and their escort in Lannisport and, having wandered around lost for some time, ended up crawling under a table in the corner of a run-down tavern, unnoticed as a travelling mummer wove words into tales for lodging and a few tankards of bad ale. Before being found and taken home to a good hiding for his carelessness, Jaime had been there long enough to hear a few of the old, bearded man's stories, but this is the one he'd never fully forgotten. It feels strangely apt, so many years later. On this night.

"It seems you never have come across this one, Brienne, or I think you would not have liked my choice so well. It's more Weasel's tale than the knight's, and it is rather bleak. I'll tell this one as it was told to me, I think, though it is sadly lacking in dragons of any sort," he warns her, for all that it is unnecessary.

"I heard it told that Weasel didn't die in the frozen wastes of the North. In fact, Godsric's squire was no squire, but a maiden from the south." He casts his gaze fondly over the pale, thin rat tails that try so valiantly to pass for hair on Brienne's head. "She can't have been a terribly pretty maid, mind you, for it seems she stayed that way throughout all of their joint adventures, which were much the same as in the commoner tales until the end. Though perhaps there had been fewer ice monsters, and more blood. Their journeys together done, Weasel got it into her head to go on a dangerous quest. She'd heard tell of a sorcerer in the mountains who could grant men sight. Real eyes, so it was said."

He thinks of the gift of a blood red sword and his untidy scratchings in the White Book. "So Weasel took herself off into the wilds, so that Ser Godsric might again see as he once did. That he might wield his bow as he had in his youth, without her guidance." He pauses, noticing the yellow and green mottling of fading bruises underneath Brienne's ear.

"It was only when she was gone that Ser Godsric realized the importance of his friend and set off to find her. He needed to." Jaime swallows, his throat thick. "He had begun to think that his loyal maiden might come to shelter in his heart." Fingers feel for those taken from him and he doesn't know it at all until they find nothing. Yet instead of looking at his maimed limb with revulsion, he rests it in his remaining hand, holding it as Brienne had earlier.

"It took him an age to find Weasel in the foothills of the mountains and she had been changed by her time on the road. She was scarred and exhausted. She told him she had been set upon by brigands some moons past, but that she had escaped and come across the sorcerer, who would make him whole again. Ser Godsric knew there was something wrong, but followed her nonetheless."

_As I do you, my Lady._

"It only mattered to him that Weasel still lived, though her pains were evident in the marks on her skin.

"This, being an old tale, did not have things go well. It turned out that the sorcerer did like to grant some men sight. Yet the eyes had to come from _somewhere_. In the years past, for every two men granted the gift of an eye with which to see, one other traveller in the mountains was wholly blinded, having their eye sockets left empty. But the sorcerer was old, and in truth, he had begun to enjoy taking eyes more than giving them. Where once he had only blinded those he deemed unworthy, those who had committed the worst sins, he now preyed on the innocent and the good. And he was entranced by the idea of taking the lone eye of the bearer of the Golden Bow."

Brienne becomes suddenly restless under the blankets, her face moving from side to side, and her legs kicking in the small manner of one dreaming ill. Jaime moves to quiet her, again brushing his useless stump over her forehead, which is slicked with her sweat, and shushing her as he would imagine a nursemaid would a babe. In short order, she settles into a deeper, less troubled sleep and Jaime turns to the fire, adding more wood to the small blaze whilst he absently wipes her sweat from his stunted wrist onto the leg of his breeches. He watches the flames begin to catch at the new fuel and whispers to the growing flames.

"Weasel led Ser Godsric to him, though she knew the sorcerer was more likely to blind the man she loved, for that she did with all her heart, than restore his sight fully.

"She had good reason to do so. When she had been captured by the brigands, there had been no talk of sapphires to save her."

Jaime drops himself softly back onto his arse next to his companion. "Obviously, there was no mention of sapphires back in the Westerlands, Brienne. Mummers have always revelled in the sordid and the tale, as I heard it, was a lot more detailed. But I think you have idea enough of what went on, so I will not trouble you with those horrors."

He hopes, with every breath, that an idea is still all she has on it. To think otherwise fills him with the coldest of rage. It has snatched at him once or twice, as this day has worn on and moved into night, yet he slips from its grasp each time. Just. It threatens him now, but he pushes it away, choosing instead to carry on with the tale.

"However, nature did as it does and as a result of this barbarism, Weasel birthed a girl in the mountains, having already freed herself from her captors. In fact, the sorcerer came across her and aided her in her time of womanly battle, because he had not yet descended to harming women and children.

"Weasel found the babe hard to love, but could not blame an innocent for the acts of those who had abused her so badly, such was the kindness in her heart. At first, she welcomed the safety offered in the stone lair of the sorcerer, and told him of her troubles and of her quest."

He smiles at the injured warrior now resting peacefully beside him. "I had always thought her a trusting fool, but it may be that she had not yet seen enough of the world. Or perhaps she preferred to look for the good in it." Jaime brushes at the burn marks on the inside of his right boot, though it makes little difference.

"So the sorcerer gave Weasel and her child shelter. Yet after only a fortnight, she saw him strike a goatherd blind. It was for no other reason than his goats blocking a mountain path for a moment, when the sorcerer was out foraging. He dragged the unfortunate man back into his home in his sudden fury and took his sight, despite Weasel's protests.

"She tried to escape, but it was no use. The sorcerer grew angry with her too. He took her babe and encased her tiny body in a block of ice, demanding that Weasel go and find Ser Godsric.

"At first, Weasel denied him, thinking her child already dead. But she was not. The spell that bound her infant into the ice also kept her alive. For three days and nights, Weasel sat next to the frozen babe, refusing to follow the sorcerer's wishes. Yet she pressed her head to the ice often and could hear the pattering beat of a tiny heart.

"It began to falter. And Weasel knew she had no choice. For all that he was a warrior most feared, she alone knew that Ser Godsric would walk barefoot through snowy wastes or across scorching sands to save a child."

Jaime shakes his head incredulously at that. "Really, Brienne, he was so full of honour, it makes me almost _ill_." He sees that in her period of unrest, one of her feet has come free of the blankets and twists around to cover it again. Then he looks back at the heated pallor of her face.

"Weasel found her knight, who had, as we know, been searching for her most desperately. Though he was as gruff as ever, the sight of him filled her with such joy as she had never felt. And such sorrow."

He gazes rather pointedly at a crooked nose and pale eyelashes. "Does any of this sound familiar, Brienne? I'm _not_ blind, you know. There's a reason I happened to choose the tale of these _idiots_." She fails to answer, of course, but Jaime does not think it matters.

"She led him to the sorcerer, her grief wailing like a storm in her mind as she did so. Though Weasel had a plan to save both the man she loved and the babe she'd borne."

Jaime rubs at his beard and squints slightly, as if that will help bring back some lost parts of the tale. "I forget all the details, for I was but seven when I heard it, and I was too excited by the thought of the upcoming fight to be overly interested in the intent of the woman in the piece. I was at that difficult stage when girls seemed frankly vile and not a little stupid. But I'm fairly sure I remember Weasel's plan including some outlandishly noble act of self-sacrifice. Perhaps she was to offer both of her own eyes, instead of his one?" He pauses as the pieces fall into place in his mind. "Yes, that was it. Anyway, I was sure that Ser Godsric would be the hero of the tale, for he was the knight. I recall being rather disappointed when that didn't turn out to be the case. At least, not in the standard fashion."

Jaime chuckles quietly as he remembers that he had, in fact, been more than rather disappointed that day. It was his cry of outrage at the path the tale took that led to the discovery of his hiding place. He'd been dragged out from under the table by a large, round woman, with a face that appeared floridly angry, though she had turned out to be quite kind. She sat him on her lap and even gave him a small honey cake, whilst the story ended and they waited for his father's men to arrive for him. Still, honey cake or no, it would take him some years to appreciate the meaning of the tale. He wryly thinks that, were she to hear it, Brienne might not take quite that long.

He continues with the part that had revealed him, all those years ago. "The knight was in the sorcerer's den for little more than the time it takes for an autumn leaf to fall from a tree to the ground before his lone eye was just gone. The last thing he ever saw was the tiny babe in the ice and he understood what had happened and why, even as his eye collapsed into mist and disappeared from his skull. Yet there was no pain. Not in _him_.

"Weasel, however, was driven to the purest rage, having not had the chance to make her bargain. She picked up Bonecrusher and beat the sorcerer to death when her own pain at her betrayal of her beloved overwhelmed her. As he sat there in a darkness which would never end for him, Ser Godsric heard each blow of his bloodstained cudgel and willed Weasel to hit yet harder. He heard the old sorcerer's last, struggling breaths. And then, when the Taker of Sight was dead, he heard the cracking of ice and the plaintive cries of the babe."

Jaime smiles at the sleeping Maid of Tarth. "Given how grim this story has been, it ends quite charmingly, my Lady.

Ser Godsric asked Weasel to bring him the child and he held the little one in his arms. He told the woman he loved that her daughter, the last person he would ever see, had so much of Weasel in her that there was no room left for those who had caused her such hurt. Even through the ice, he had seen it. He asked for the babe's name, but received no answer, for Weasel had not found the will to name her yet, after all the horror and strife which had been visited upon her. So Ser Godsric suggested her own."

He tilts his head and searches his memories. "I'm assuming, at this point, that she had a name other than Weasel, though I don't think the tale ever told of it." He nods shortly to himself, certain that this was the case.

"The woman who had been at his side for so much of her life agreed and he took both mother and babe fully into his heart at that very moment, never to leave. They departed the dreadful mountain, though their last great journey was made slow, as the passes were dangerous and Ser Godsric was unused to the new level of his affliction. But they made it safely back to the moors and plains below and travelled yet further, to the North, where Ser Godsric's family home was to be found.

"He took his rightful place as head of his fledgling House and he took a wife he would ever love, some said beyond reason. The babe, though weakened by her own ordeal, survived and she was eventually joined by brothers and sisters, all of whom were treated the same as she."

He picks at the top of his boots, his thumbnail catching at soft leather and sending quiet scraping noises into the air. "I grew to love that part, later on. After our mother...it made me think of my brother. It's what I would have wished for him." He shies away from dwelling much more on Tyrion, other than to think that although he has left utter turmoil in his wake, Jaime hopes he is alive somewhere. After all, their father's death cannot be undone now.

He distracts himself by waving his fingers in the air and bringing the tale to a close. "So, to end, Ser Godsric became a Lord revered, considered a wise man, and he and his wife found true happiness in their lives."

Jaime laughs, softly but very dryly. "I think it was the happy ending that spoiled it for me, Brienne. It seemed too improbable, even back then. I believed the babe living in the ice as quick as I would buy a punnet of cockles from a shellfish girl...did I ever tell you I liked them, as a boy? But now I am old and their finding such happiness seems far too good to be true." He drops his head into his hand and thinks, for a moment, that he is a fool for being here at all. "Perhaps yet more so today. I don't believe that is what lies in wait for us, is it?" he grimly finishes.

Yet he at looks at Brienne and Jaime knows he could not be anywhere else. "Something has occurred to me, in just these last hours, Brienne, and I would have you hear it. Even if you are asleep." Unthinking, he reaches out again with his stump to touch her, but pulls it back before he does so. It is best he does not risk waking her. "I never got the impression that Ser Godsric ever blamed his Weasel for leading him to blindness. And I don't think he would have, even had it meant his death." Jaime pours all of his certainty into the final words he will speak to Brienne this night. "So long as _she_ lived. Somehow."

His last tale, of a sort, done, Jaime rises to his feet, rolling his shoulders, now in state of absolute silence, as best he can. The horses are not yet fully secured, for all that they are hobbled with the straps he brought with him. The animals he chose were docile enough to allow him to lift their hooves earlier with no real strength; something he could just about do with his stump, if he crouched and rested his elbow on his thigh. He wants to keep their mounts as close as he can. He thinks he saw something like a pen for pigs, or perhaps mules, built hard to the side of this building earlier, so he goes outside, trying not to make the rusted hinges of the door squeak too much as he leaves.

The horses have barely moved at all, both of them happy to be gnawing on various bits of foliage. He leads them into the tiny pen one at a time and neither of them seems to mind overly much. The latter is not so pleased when Jaime tries to wrap her reins about a taller post, but he stops anyway, when he notices the clever arrangement set up by whomever had lived here before. Going to a pack, he pulls out two hitching ropes and attaches one to each animal, tying them with fingers and teeth, only to drop the stones through large metal loops set each side of the window. Apologizing to the mounts for this indignity, he knows he will now likely be awake for most of the night, listening to each tiny rattle of the wooden shutters for thieves.

He pisses against a nearby tree, all the time trying to make sense of what little he has gleaned from Brienne since they left Pennytree. Early in the day, she had told him that she wasn't sure how long ago she'd been injured and almost nothing else. The child she spoke of cannot be hers, he believes, but he does not doubt there is one, or that it is the very reason he is being led by Brienne to whatever dark place awaits them. There is a plot, a trap. He knows it, but the one thing is sure of is that it is not of Brienne's devising.

She is being damnedly closed-mouthed though, and her stubbornness may well see them both dead. There is, however, nothing to be done until she wakes, even if Jaime knows he will spend the night with his mind being crowded with bleak possibilities.

He makes his way back in, only to find that Brienne has moved slightly, her left arm now flung outwards and the blankets covering her more rucked. For a moment, he thinks his last tale was not unheard and he both dreads and hopes for it.  But then he hears the hitching ropes sliding just outside of the window and the shutters giving a slight rattle, so he believes it might have been that which disturbed her.

He re-takes his seat by the small fire and watches the lady sleep. The sight of her alone is enough to keep the doubts and anger from swallowing him whole for a time. Yet he has questions, and even if doesn't address them to her, they echo within him as loudly as if he has spoken them.

_What happened to you out there, Brienne? Where are you leading me? And to what? For we both know it isn't into the jaws of the old family dog._

**Author's Note:**

> This is the original prompt (from tamjlee) for this fic. It is an old one, and is as follows:
> 
> ".......So after Pennytree, Brienne is leading Jaime to "save Sansa from the Hound" and she slumps down on her horse.Jaime is able to keep her from falling, but she is fevered and exhausted, she passes out.He is able to find an abandoned farm house and he gets her settled in the bed.When she wakes, she is furious, her fever has broken and she tries to get up saying that they need to leave, to get Sansa, but Jaime is even more stubborn, he convinces her that she will rest for at least a day and if her fever doesnt return they will go and continue the quest.So for the rest of the day, to distract her and make sure that Brienne stays in bed, Jaime entertains her with knightly tales.Maybe they are favourite fables from their childhood of famous knights or maybe they are stories from Jaime's own time in the Kingsguard (funny little anecdotes or noble ones).In this I see a lot of connection and just them having so many interests in common.Also a lot of a nurturing, concerned Jaime is also a bonus."
> 
> Thank you again, tamjlee.


End file.
